For instance, Australia has been willing to accept an American nuclear shield under the ANZUS treaty and does not restrict nuclear armed American vessels from using its territorial waters. The joint US-Australian facility in Pine Gap plays a crucial part in relaying early warning information to the US strategic nuclear forces. Given this, it would not be breaking the mould for Australia to explore nuclear avenues with India.
Clearly, there is an increasing number of areas where Australia can engage India. However, engagement, especially of the strategic kind, is based on mutual trust. Indians have come to see nuclear accommodation as a touchstone of bilateral relationships. This is why Australia needs to find ways to take part in a US-led global nuclear rapprochement with India. The Indo-US nuclear deal provides an excellent pathway for this. The deal is basically another instance of a recent trend away from ageing and inflexible international treaties and towards a consensus of like-minded states led by the US, when it comes to resolving trans-national issues such as nuclear proliferation. The enthusiastic support for the deal from Mohammed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is an indicator that this shift is not transitory.
Indian leaders will definitely understand if Australia takes some time to reconcile to the Indo-US nuclear arrangement. However, they will definitely not take kindly to Australian reading from NPT scriptures to Indians even as Canberra bends over backwards to supply uranium to China with laughable provisions that pass for safeguards. As seen from New Delhi, a global “coming to terms” with India’s nuclear status is inevitable and the level of India’s trust with Australia depends on when Canberra boards the bus.
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Building such ties with India is not going to damage Australian engagement of China. While the People’s Republic perceives India as a competitor, it also understands that its trading partners cannot be expected to abandon other rising economic powers. The Chinese will continue to trade and invest with Australia to the extent they are allowed. India itself is not actively pursuing containment against the PRC. It has pursued peace with China for over 20 years despite Chinese nuclear support to Pakistan and Zhongnanhai’s unwillingness to make real concessions on the border dispute.
What India is doing now is simply what all democracies do when faced with long-term issues - keep all options open. India is building options that are meant to communicate to China that genuine peace and friendship are cheaper than antagonising New Delhi. Indian democracy has also resulted in India merely building a handful of nuclear weapons every year when it has the capacity to build a hundred or more.
India is basically asking Australian policymakers the same type of things the Americans seek. Both want Australia to not let a commerce-led geopolitical inertia determine its China and Asia policy. While Australia makes moves hoping that China would indeed have a “peaceful rise”, hope is not a policy. Canberra would be wise to develop choices for both itself and Beijing.
Close strategic ties between Australia, India and the US would give the Chinese a clear cut choice between the benefits of conciliation and accommodation on one hand and the dangers of belligerence and overreach on the other. As a friend and a key trading partner, Australia would then do well to steer China towards choices that make the region and the world safer.
As with any period involving rising powers, we are seeing a strategic paradigm shift today. Indians certainly hope that Australia would welcome India’s rise as opposed to sticking to patronising comments on curry and cricket while vainly trying to prop up the antediluvian order of yesterday.
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